Pieces of Me
by xPerfectxImperfection
Summary: Someone from Jim's past shows up and brings something with them that could make him give up his random women and late night bars. Not a good summary it's better than it sounds really.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I own nobody from the movie S.W.A.T nor do I own any of the storyline I may use as background information. I do, however, own all original characters you see within this fic.

**Author's Note:** Just a warning to the die hard Jim/Chris fans they may not end up together in this story as after watching the commentary I have learned a few things about the relationship but I haven't finalized anything yet. Also leave me feedback whether you like this or not because that's the only way for me to continue it.

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Sand flew in every direction as he jogged by the waters edge leaving a trail of dug in foot prints where he went. Though he couldn't see anything but the reflection of the moon on the water's breaking surface he knew where he was going. He'd traveled that path so many times before that it didn't matter that he couldn't see, wasn't paying attention.

His mind wandered to the funeral he'd attended just weeks ago. One he'd debated about going to for days but in the end he'd gone. He always had known that he would because somewhere it didn't matter to him that he'd been betrayed by the man they'd laid to rest. In some part of his brain it didn't even matter that he'd killed several people just to show Fuller how much smarter than him he was. Because somewhere he still saw him as his best friend. And to that part of his brain it would always be that way even with the death of one.

The rhythmic sound of waves crashing against the beach before washing away again lulled him into a deep train of thought. Thoughts that hadn't, in the months of analyzing he'd done, once crossed his mind. Even his work related section that kept him devoted to the job at all costs.

He wiped the sweat that threatened to drip down his forehead and into his eyes with the back of his hand trying to remember how many miles he'd already ran when his mind threatened to wander to why he got angry when his team talked of Bryan as though he were a waste of a human being. When he began to wonder why he still saw himself and Bryan as friends though they'd severed ties many months before. Why should he call him a friend, had this so called "friend" he'd had since high school, his partner in the police force and SWAT for five years, best man at his almost wedding not betrayed him? Had he not tried to kill him? Didn't he prove that what is mandatory in all long lasting good friendships hadn't been there by not trusting him and then breaking that trust with Alex Montel? And he found himself on the verge of being pissed and quoting this friend in his head. A real partner wouldn't have to ask that.

But the words hadn't remained a simple thought in his head. He'd spoken them outloud in a lower tone of voice unwilling to break the serene quiet all around him. He could feel small amounts of anger beginning to build up in his body. Anger that would start small and evolve into a thick boiling river that would course through his body and drive him harder in this routine he'd started at the beach. Before he knew it he'd be working out relentlessly at the old light house that was to be his destination on this night but for a different purpose. He'd work himself well past exhaustion to the point where he'd get puking sick yet still he'd go on jogging home where he'd hit the punching back in the corner until he couldn't move and collapse on his bed.

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The beach was uncharacteristically still. No wind and the waves, usually roaring with power, seem to have receded to nothing more than tiny breaks on the surface hardly visible in the distance. It was as if the wind and water knew something that she didn't. It reminded her of the calm before the storm yet the weather forecast for the weekend was anything but storm worthy and the week had already proven to be beautiful.

She kicked at a random clump of sand before finally sitting upon the pill box that had been half embedded in sand sitting just beyond the old light house that housed many so many memories she hardly thought she'd ever experienced anything worth remembering anywhere else.

The small smile that had graced her features vanished almost as quickly as it had come as she turned from the light house and running a hand over the rough concrete remembering all the times she'd spent thinking and sitting on it. She almost found it funny that looking at the light house made her happy yet here just a few short feet away she remember everything that had ever caused her a moments worry or grief. She dropped her shoes in the sand as she sat on the surface tucking her knees under her chin and watching the water.

For the first time since she'd heard of her brother's death she actually allowed herself to think of what had happened. She found herself grieving her loss but cursing how stupid he had been and acted. And no matter how hard she'd tried to hate the man who had caused him to no longer be there when she needed him she couldn't do it. For she knew, maybe not on the surface of her thinking but somewhere much more important, that he had done it for the greater good of all. No matter how much she didn't want to come to grips with the fact that he had been killed she couldn't deny that he'd been on a downward spiral for months. And she, unlike others, realized that his death had been inevitable one way or the other. There would have been no rehabilitation. Because her brother would never have gone to jail they would have found him with a bullet in his head or worse and a note with his reasoning. And that was the one thing she could not handle.

But from the time she'd gotten the call from her brother, when he'd cursed his best friend and wished him out of existance she couldn't help but feel guilty. Feeling as though she'd put a strain on their friendship with secrets she'd made him promise to keep and leaving him at the alter because she was nineteen and scared of making such a huge commitment when neither of their parents had been able to succeed at it either. Because at such a young age she wasn't ready for such a huge commitment but had accepted because everyone had pressured her into it with their feelings that it was right. And her brother had been the one to tell her to make her own decision though she knew he wanted her to marry Jim more than anything.

The salt that hangs in the air by the ocean water clings to the tears that have sprung and dries them out before they fall from her eyes burning like acid. But as always it is a part of the cleansing process. She pulls her hair over her shoulder and lets it run it's course eyes and throat stinging.

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Quicker than he thought his fast pace has carried him to the light house and only then does he slow down preparing to walk around the light house where, obscured from vision by the aging weathered woodwork, lies the place that has gotten him through rough times. The one place where the combination of water and void of intrusion by the winding road built by most of the coast can pull him back from the edge and make things make sense.

He realizes only when he's almost to the pill box that the shadow he'd seen but not comprehended is another human being. With no more than a gap of three feet between him and this person who has intruded upon his thinking he realizes nearly at once who it is and why they looked so familiar even though he can only make out the outline against the velvet black sky. The movements of their body and the way the moon, rising steadily higher in the dark night sky, shines off the hair thrown carelessly over their shoulders has told him the identity. He knows she's sitting there, staring at the water but not actually seeing it, looking for the answers to the questions they share. Answers neither will ever be able to know.

And for a minute he contemplates turning back. Coming back when he is sure to be alone, as he once thought, in the oppressive silence that surrounds the both of them. But his feet make the decision for him. As if they have a mind of their own they move him forward towards her quickly closing the distance between them. And for the first time he's unnaturally aware of how he's moving. Of the way his arms swing at his sides, of the way his heart is beating rapidly and loudly, and of the way his breathing has become rushed and forceful. Trying to correct everything he feels looks stupid he trips on a piece of drift wood and stumbles forward only just catching his balance before pitching forward into the concrete.

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Before she has time to comprehend who it is, before she can make an attempt to flee he's beside her. Awkwardly positioned after his near miss with the concrete and inwardly she laughs. But seeing him here, being alone in this place that had once been shared between them, is something she's not ready for. And just his presence unnerves her more than she would willingly admit.

"Can I join you?"

He asks it as though she would be able to simply reply with an answer. As though they didn't have a past and she were just an aquaintence he has. She turns the question over in her head looking for the hidden meaning but knowing that after three years he likely doesn't have one hidden as he used to. Knowing that he is likely just looking for a place to search his mind and soul for answers.

She scoots over creating a space large enough for him to sit in and not be too near her indicating her assent. He sits quietly beside her mimicking the way she was looking out over the ocean before he came perfectly.

"Expecting answers?"

She asks it having abandoned staring out at the dark water and studying the way he was sitting beside her. She imagined he looked every bit the way she remembered. Maybe older with time but his posture, smell, the cocky air around him... everything was so familiar. And though she's just heard herself ask him she's momentarily stunned that she had been the one to innitiate conversation.

He slowly nods turning from the water to meet her gaze before he answers, "Aren't we all?"

As always her simple question had been answered with just as simple and non-committal an answer that she's infuriated by it. But the expression on his face says that he's amused by the flash of annoyance he has seen cross her face.

But the moment they'd shared that had been common so many years ago was gone in an instant as they both turned quickly back toward the unnaturally calm water. 

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His unasked question lingered about him as he gazed out into the water an internal battle being waged. Asking the question is not the difficult part but hearing the answer could kill him. When he finally turns toward her she can see the anxious look on his face that he had unsuccessfully tried to mask.

"Do you hate me?"

He finally asks not looking at her but at a point just past her left shoulder where the moon glitters across a particularly smooth puddle of water.

In the seemingly long minutes that it takes for her to get over the shock of the asked question and comprehend what he is asking her, he finds his stomach not fully turning but giving a rather feeble lurch forward that seems to launch a million butterflies.

"Why would you ask that?"

The tone which she uses clearly states that this is a rhetorical question for which she expects no answer. A statment to buy her time while she fully overcomes the shock that the question has brought on.

"No I don't hate you. If anything.."

But she trails off jamming a hand through her tangled chestnut hair that he remembered being silky soft to the touch and never in such a state. 

_If anything....?_

He silently thinks ears straining to hear even the quietest of answers but nothing more follows. And he can tell by the way that she looks out at the water, eyes nothing more than unfocused honey orbs that she's deep in thought unwilling to finish her sentence.

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_Hate him? She could never....why would he think such a thing?_

"No I don't hate you. If anything..."

But she was able to stop herself from telling him that he should hate her. She couldn't tell him that at this very moment in the house of the very man that had recruited him and the every member of his SWAT team slept a little boy who shared not just his last name but every tiny detail down to the way he was mesmerized by every cop that seemed to pass. Only his eyes set their childhood pictures a part. For they belonged to his mother.

She wouldn't tell him now because he had suffered such a great loss. It was unfair to not only Jim but the little boy as well. And she convinced herself that this was why he couldn't know. But in truth she was afraid that she may lose the one thing to which she was sure she needed more than the child needed her.

She was afraid the child would be hurt. That he would get so caught up in the lifestyle his father lived that when his father's inner child awoke and pushed him away that he would be devastated beyond repair. She told herself that it was better for them both to keep emotional ties to the minimum avoiding any potential heart break for either.

"I really don't hate you."

The words come out as a whisper more for her own assurance than his.

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She says them so quietly against the night sky that they were barely audible. But his ears, seemingly sensitive to the slightest sound, pick them up. And he nods his head determining it fitting for the occasion but knows the words weren't intended for his reassurance.

He knows that she has spent a great deal of the last three years trying to hate him. That he was the scape goat behind her self loathing. But he couldn't blame her. After what had happened between them he was sure she needed a reason and he was willing to absorb everything she blamed on him and add it to what he had already stored having blamed himself.

"Not as much as I hate my brother."

This part she says only just louder than the last an after thought of the painful trip her brain had taken. He is shocked by this honest confession and can find no comforting words or a response of any kind.

Looking down at his watch as an excuse to avoid having to comment he is surprised to find that already it is two in the morning and he has work in just three hours.

"I...uh...I have to go."

Any other time, if only it where any other person he could leave it at that. Just a simple answer with no need for clarification and no expectations.

"I've got work in the morning."

They finish the sentence together and share another smile and another moment to add to their pile in the past.

"Yeah I better go too."

She stands from the concrete clearing her shorts of sand that remained clinging to the jean material. He meets her gaze for only a minute before she turns toward the opposite direction and starts toward the trail winding up the incline where she has parked her car on the abandoned dirt road, a shortcut to the freeway.

"Rydley." He calls after her already disappearing shadow.

"What?" She stops dead in her tracks facing, what he hopes, is him.

"If you're not doing anything at noon you should drop by. We'll do lunch or something." He says in a voice he hopes is more casual than desperate or hopeful.

"Ummm...."

For a minute disappointment clouds his head and he is surprised to find that his heart has taken up residency somewhere near his navel. He curses himself for asking having already foreseen the answer.

"Yeah that sounds okay."

He let out a breath he'd not known he was holding and let a smile he knew she couldn't see stay rooted firmly on his face.

"see you then."

"Yeah."

He watched her walk until she was no longer distinguishable from the night sky and turned jogging back to his apartment happier than he had felt when he'd started out.


	2. The Tie That Binds

Jim tipped the end of the beer bottle into the air and drained the remnants of alocohol from the dark brown colored glass. He signaled to the bartender that to get him another and looked over his shoulder to where a trucker was getting his ass handed to him in pool by a petite blond chick with a backward baseball hat on while a man, presumably her boyfriend, leaned against the wall and watched hiding a small smile behind his hand. It reminded him of the times when he and Rydley used to cheat people out of their money in the same way.  
  
The familiar thud of glass on wood snapped him from this reverie and without so much as thanking the bartender he swiveled the stool forward again and drank his fifth of the night. Looking at the many glass objects and posters behind the bar advertising various beers from Coors to Skyy Blue he thought about how he'd turned down drinking with his team to come here and be alone. And he wished that he'd gone so he could think with a clear head when he got home instead of an alcohol induced stupor.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a leggy blond checking him over several times in between which she would turn to her brunette friend and they would both let out girly giggles. But he had too much on his mind to care that she was subtley begging him to approach her or that she was standing from her stool and walking toward him her friend carefully observing behind her glass. And when she sat down he didn't even turn to look.  
  
"My car broke down about a block from here and my friend and I were wondering if you could give us a lift." She stated less as a question and more as if it were helpful to him to have to drive them home.  
  
"I could call you a cab." He replied uninterested after what he'd found out earlier that day.  
  
She didn't respond just shot her friend a disgusted look and walked back over looking over the other guys in the bar talking rapidly the whole time and glancing over her shoulder at him. He merely shrugged his shoulders and continued drinking until he'd finished yet another beer before signalling that he wanted another.  
  
"No way Jim you've reached your limit." The bartender told him as he cleared away the empty bottle.  
  
"What limit? You've never given me a limit before Phil so why one now?" Jim questioned irritated that his "friend" would deny him the one thing he wanted most.  
  
"Because you're not drinking your problems away this time buddy. You've gotta learn to deal with it." Phil replied in a do-I-have-to-even-explain-it tone.  
  
Jim let out an irritated sigh and fished his keys from his pocket as he walked from the bar and pushed the door open with so much force it almost hit the brick building and slammed behind him. But he knew that Phil was right and he wasn't mad at the old man and his ability to somehow know everything. He was just plain and simply angry without a real direction to throw the blame. He couldn't be mad at her because he understood what she must have gone through and he wasn't mad at himself either because he didn't do anything. But he couldn't help but think about the news he had to deal with all through training that day.  
  
**Noon: LAPD Station: Hondo's Office**  
  
_He paused at the beginning of the hallway where he was going to meet her outside of Hondo's office. It had been her suggestion and he hadn't even stopped to think that she shouldn't know Hondo. He'd been long gone when her brother and himself had joined the S.W.A.T team and shown up long after she'd left. And it didn't occur to him to place the god-daughter named Rydley that Hondo talked about all the time with the same girl he knew.  
  
He wiped the sweat that had formed durning training on the hem of his shirt and glanced toward the chairs outside of the office. He paused midstep when he saw her kneeling before a little boy no more than three obviously warning him about the rules of being in a public place. For a reason unbeknownst to him it felt as though his body had been filled with lead at the sight of this youngster, a sight uncommon to the police station. He tried to push the feeling away trying to convince himself that she was watching a friends kid for the afternoon but he knew that was untrue. On some level of his brain he knew it was her child and by the looks of the child even at the distance he was at he thought he knew who the father was. He swallowed hard and continued walking. His strides longer, pace quicker.  
  
"Oh." She stated standing from the ground and facing him, "I didn't hear you."  
  
"Yeah well that's a part of my job isn't it?" He replied internally cursing himself for the stupid comment as if she didn't already know, "Who's the kid?"  
  
"This is...."  
  
But before she could finish her statement she was interrupted by someone else as they rushed down the hall excitement in their voice.  
  
"Junior? Come her and give old Uncle H a hug boy." Hondo stated as he came toward them faster than Jim had ever seen him move.  
  
The little boy, who had been previously staring up at Jim now in jeans and a black S.W.A.T shirt with a look of awe and idolization on his face, rushed toward his "uncle" grinning ear to ear.  
  
"Untle up." He cried arms above his head and the old man ablidged almost too willingly.  
  
Jim caught himself smiling slightly at the situation and tried to hide it the best that he could before turning back to face Rydley.  
  
"Is he.." He started but never finished.  
  
"Mine? Yeah he's mine." She confirmed smile fading as she looked at him, almost nervously.  
  
"So are you ready?"  
  
"Yeah." She refocused her gaze to the little boy now being swung around by a laughing Hondo.  
  
Hondo shook his head momentarily stopping, "Don't even think about taking this little boy from me now I haven't seen him in months. You just enjoy yourself I'll show him to the team."  
  
Rydley nodded and they left the station for a nearby restaurant where Deke's father worked/managed. A place his S.W.A.T team frequented and he knew served good food quickly. He couldn't keep his mind off of the little boy who looked so much like he had as a child but he was sure wasn't his. However, in a part of his brain wheels were turning and pieces of the puzzle, like why she hadn't left right after the funeral, had started to click into place._

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Jim was shaken from thoughts of just hours earlier that day as he slammed on his brakes at a stop sign he hadn't seen until he'd been right up on it. A horn sounded behind him and he flipped the guy the finger turning onto the street that housed his apartment. He killed the engine outside of the complex and climbed from his baby blue car turning on the alarm. As he climbed the stairs to his room at the very top facing the water he slipped back into memories of the day.  
  
**Twelve-thirty: Restaurant**  
  
_Jim watched her pushing the left over salad around with her fork. She ate less than half and had downed her water faster than he'd ever seen anyone in his life. So frequently was she drinking from it that Deke's father had brought them a pitcher much as he did with beer when the team was drinking there.  
  
"Jim?" She asked finally lifting her eyes from the plate.  
  
"What?" He asked studying her from across the table.  
  
She took a deep breath before she continued with a pointless question, "You remember Junior? My son?"  
  
How could he forget? That was her son by someone he assumed he didn't know. It was some nameless man who had fathered her child instead of him. It wasn't his son and it should be because he would have stuck around. His kid wouldn't grow up fatherless as he had.  
  
These thoughts and more raced through his mind but he didn't voice them. Instead he merely nodded and drank from his own glass before he voiced his answer.  
  
"Of course I remember him I only met him twenty minutes ago."  
  
"Right. Jim I don't know how to tell you this. You remember the night before I left you at the church? The night at the lighthouse?" She paused and took a deep breath dropping her fork to the plate with a loud clatter, " No don't say anything I have to just get this out or I may never. Jim he's your son. Junior, James Tyler Gamble, is yours."  
  
He didn't know how to respond to that knowledge. He didn't think he could. Inside he felt happiness and relief that it wasn't some strange man he didn't know at all that had fathered Junior and a feeling that he needed to make the last three years up to both of them swelled up inside of him from somewhere he didn't know. But doubts began to form.  
  
Why was she just telling him now? Maybe he should deny that the little boy was his until he got a paternity test. Perhaps she was broke and the real father, a deadbeat father, had left her and the boy so he was her out.  
  
Inside he knew these accusations were untrue but he was angry that she hadn't given him the chance to be the father he knew he could be.  
  
"I know that you're angry. What I did was unfair to the both of you." Her voice broke into his thoughts, " But I was scared Jim. I was so scared here I was nineteen, pregnant, and about to make the biggest commitment of my life. I didn't think that I was ready for the responsibility and I considered not even having him but I couldn't not. I didn't know how to be a mother, I mean look at my example. And I knew knowing that there was even a chance you had to be a father would have terrified you and I was scared that if I told you you'd leave me forever. So when I knew for sure I told Bryan and I left. He was supposed to tell you but he didn't obviously. Jim, I'm so sorry I was acting childish and selfishly.You have every right to be mad at me. And I don't blame you if you are."  
  
"You're damn right I'm pissed off. You can't just walk in here after all these years and say 'Gee Jim before I left you for no reason at all I forgot to tell you one tiny thing. You have a son.' How do I know that he's not the kid of a random guy who you met at a party. How do I even know it's mine Rydley? Because you're confidant is lying six feet under right now." He practically shouted standing from the table.  
  
She looked at him shocked that he would even suggest such a thing and opened her mouth to speak before snapping it shut again at the insinuation that she'd been sleeping around before she left. Words failed her and with no other alternative she walked out of the door toward her car. He watched her walk from the building before he let out a deep breath having exploded like that and immediately regretted his outburst.  
  
"Rydley! Rye, I'm sorry. Please come back." He called after her walking out of the building after her.  
  
She simply peeled off out of the parking lot back toward the building and the little boy was gone by the time he got back. Nearly twenty minutes after he should have been. He couldn't be sure but he figured underneath the professional approach Hondo was taken toward him the rest of the training session he thought he sensed animosity._  
  
He fell onto his bed and pushed the button on his answering machine that would play his messages. There was one from Deke and Chris who had obviously thought it a fun game to call him up and slur things he couldn't understand obviously more drunk than either had known. And one from Boxer wondering if he was okay and offering to set him up with his sister. Something he'd been trying to do for months now. But the last one, from Hondo, had caught his attention.  
  
"Jim this Hondo. I know you think I'm pissed at you and you're damn right about that. Probably the only thing you're right about. I know how you feel about my god-daughter and your son. I could tell the day she showed up and you knew she was here. The way you looked when I talked about my Rydley before you knew she was yours too. All I can say is pull your head from your ass or you're going to loose them both. Because right now she's trying to switch her flight back home to tomorrow. Only I've got buddies at the airport doing me a favor and she wont get out until next Thursday. That gives you a week Street so be smart and make amends. She'll be at the barbeque at my house tomorrow. There's your chance."  
  
His house seemed to go unnaturally quiet after the message had ended. Even his dog, Hampton, couldn't be heard panting on the floor at the side of his bed. Rather than easing the anger that he'd been feeling lately about what had happened the message had replaced it with dread. He knew that nearly the whole department would be showing up. And that meant Chris too. How was he going to explain to her that he had a son? After they'd been getting so close this new found knowledge of a son had thrown a wrench in the progress. He knew they'd never be together. Chris had told him that much. She feared for her job if they ever got together and broke up because she didn't know if he'd be pissed about it and screw her over or not. She'd explained that much to him. But he knew that the feelings were there. He just didn't know how or why he should explain Rydley and the boy who shared his name because she would ask. And if she didn't Eliza would.  
  
He closed his eyes to think and drifted off into a troubled sleep. Still fully clothed and jacketed, brain still buzzing about how he was going to fix this situation, and still unsure of how he was going to make it up to Rydley.


End file.
